As December arrived, temperatures dropped day by day, and Qiao Qingyu dug out that moon-white turtleneck sweater from her closet. Among her pitifully few clothes, this was the one she least wanted to wear, but two weeks of continuous rain had left the balcony crowded with clothes, leaving her no other choice.
By now, Li Fanghao hadn’t been home for four months. That day, Qiao Huan came to pack Li Fanghao’s winter clothes to send back with a fellow villager. Qiao Qingyu helped with the organizing, spending half an hour in her parents’ bedroom.
The last time she’d entered this room was over a year ago, also to organize clothes, when Li Fanghao had held her hand and worriedly mentioned Ming Sheng. Remembering her adamant denials then, Qiao Qingyu felt deeply remorseful. She had to admit Li Fanghao’s intuition had been accurate—even she hadn’t expected that just a year later, in the monotonous life of a senior year, her every breath would be tied to Ming Sheng.
Yes, without exaggeration, whenever she wasn’t thinking, every breath contained his shadow.
With Li Fanghao away, no one noticed her changes. Qiao Qingyu thought perhaps this was why she’d become so indulgent. With a heart bent on self-punishment, she began hoping for Li Fanghao’s early return, both to help herself regain focus and to free Li Fanghao from her uncle’s family’s oppression.
“Sister’s matter is settled,” Qiao Qingyu told herself. “I can’t be careless about Mom’s situation.”
After finishing with the clothes, before closing the wardrobe, Qiao Qingyu glanced at the white safe—it remained in its place, quiet and still.
Qiao Lusheng was watching TV in the living room while blow-drying clothes. Qiao Huan said goodbye and left with a bag of clothes. Qiao Qingyu walked out of the room, about to close the door, when Qiao Lusheng said: “Don’t close it, here, fold these dry clothes and take them in.”
Just as she started folding before Detective Di Renjie’s words had finished on TV, commercials cut in.
“Dad,” Qiao Qingyu smiled, “aren’t you tired of watching this?”
“Haven’t watched in a long time,” Qiao Lusheng said. “With your mom away, there’s so much more to do.”
“Mm.”
“I haven’t even managed your studies,” Qiao Lusheng shook his head with a smile. “Think about before, when your mom managed all three of you studying and eating, plus doing all the housework, how exhausting that was.”
“Let’s have Mom come back. Grandfather’s health is better now,” Qiao Qingyu put aside the folded sweater and picked up another piece. “Aunt speaks so harshly, Mom must have been unhappy these past months.”
Qiao Lusheng sighed, turned off the hair dryer, and rubbed his forehead, looking worried: “Your grandfather says your aunt’s cooking is terrible, complains to your mom every day, she can’t leave… Your aunt makes trouble daily, wants us to bring the elderly here, but your mom doesn’t want to, says there’s no place to live in Huanzhou…”
“Bring Grandfather here?” Qiao Qingyu repeated in surprise. “Doesn’t Uncle have that big new house specifically built for living with Grandfather and Grandmother?”
“Heh,” Qiao Lusheng laughed sarcastically. “There’ve always been conflicts, just weren’t mentioned before. After what you did, they completely dropped all pretense. Your grandfather, ah, he’s nearly been angered to death.”
After a pause, Qiao Lusheng continued: “I’m thinking, in a couple of months, after your final exams, we’ll bring the elderly here. Your room for Grandfather, you’ll sleep with your mom, I’ll sleep in the living room. We’ll squeeze together as a family, and get through the New Year first. After that, I’ll find someone to fix up the old house, make it livable, and let your grandfather move back there.”
“Will Mom still have to go with him?”
“Who else will cook and do laundry for your grandfather?” Qiao Lusheng leaned back. “We’re all sons and daughters-in-law, doing these things is expected.”
“Can’t we use the house in Shunyun?”
“The Shunyun house is rented out, earning some monthly rent to supplement our household,” Qiao Lusheng frowned. “Our house here still needs money even if we don’t live in it. Going back to Shunyun, we’d lose the rental income. How uneconomical.”
“Dad,” Qiao Qingyu asked while thinking, “when we take care of Grandfather, will Uncle’s family contribute money?”
“Your aunt, she’s difficult to deal with,” Qiao Lusheng glanced at Qiao Qingyu. “Relations are bad now, how can we expect money from her? The relationship becoming like this is indeed our fault, so our family paying more, there’s nothing to say about it…”
“But…”
“Enough, don’t worry about family matters,” Qiao Lusheng waved his hand and yawned. “You study well, make us proud, and that brings honor to your parents. A bit of hardship doesn’t matter, we’re not too old yet, we can still handle it.”
“Dad,” Qiao Qingyu’s tone turned serious, “is Mom’s health okay?”
Qiao Lusheng closed his eyes to rest: “She’s fine.”
“Once,” Qiao Qingyu bit her lip, “a few months ago, I saw a sleeping pill bottle in the trash. Was Mom taking them?”
Qiao Lusheng opened his eyes, suddenly alert: “How do you recognize sleeping pill bottles?”
“We have a psychology class at school, it appeared in the teacher’s PowerPoint.”
“Oh,” Qiao Lusheng was quickly convinced. “They teach this at school?”
“Was Mom taking them?”
“She doesn’t sleep well,” Qiao Lusheng nodded. “Not every day, just when she’s busy, or troubled. Running the shop is a lot of work, how can her body handle it without good sleep?”
“The teacher said taking too many sleeping pills can be dangerous.”
“Your teacher is right.”
It seemed he didn’t want to discuss this topic further, but Qiao Qingyu persisted: “I’m worried Mom’s unhappy, depressed, might impulsively do something…”
“Ay,” Qiao Lusheng indeed grew impatient, “your mom’s not a child anymore, she’s been through your sister’s big incident, what is there to fear… We don’t tell you kids about adult matters precisely because we don’t want you thinking too much, understand?”
Qiao Qingyu nodded in compromise; she didn’t want to anger Qiao Lusheng.
A few minutes later, Qiao Lusheng went to shower in the bathroom, leaving the bedroom door open for Qiao Qingyu to put away the clothes. After storing the clothes, Qiao Qingyu saw the safe again, and an idea struck her. She crouched down, gently covering the protruding number dial with her palm.
Qiao Lusheng’s key ring, usually hanging at his waist, lay just half a meter away on the bedside table, within reach. Qiao Qingyu inserted the small golden key into the lock and gently turned it once.
But the door didn’t respond.
A string of numbers appeared in her mind, like a long-lost blue whale surfacing from the deep sea. Tentatively, Qiao Qingyu pressed the six numbers in sequence: 8, 5, 1, 0, 3, 1.
Click, and the safe door loosened.
So simple, so frank. While her parents deliberately erased all traces of her sister outside, they kept her birthday as their most important memory. Qiao Qingyu’s nose instantly stung.
She hesitated, then knelt and opened the safe door. Inside were two levels: the upper level held household registration books, property deeds, rental contracts, and account books; the lower level contained two or three gold chains, three gold bracelets, and two gold rings. No medical records, no legal documents. Just as she was about to close the door, a small stack of envelopes beneath the gold jewelry caught her attention.
She pulled them out.
Seven letters in total, all addressed to “Li Fanghao (Recipient),” the handwriting evolving from childish to elegant. The mailing address was the same on all: Lifang Central School.
The shower continued to splash in the bathroom. Qiao Qingyu maintained her kneeling position and first opened the envelope with the most obviously childish handwriting.
It was a letter Qiao Baiyu wrote to Li Fanghao in first grade. The characters were large, round, and very cute, mixed with many pinyin, telling Li Fanghao she’d been praised by the teacher and asking if her little sister could walk yet. The paper was white, the upper half filled with pencil writing, the lower half with a pencil drawing of a flying bird.
Seven letters, from first grade through seventh grade, one each year. From pencil to ballpoint pen, the content grew longer, the characters more orderly and graceful, like a little girl gradually blossoming into an elegant young lady. At the bottom of each letter’s blank space was a flying bird—Qiao Baiyu seemed to dislike leaving spaces blank.
Except for the last letter, where seventh-grade Qiao Baiyu wrote just a few lines, leaving a large blank space in the lower half.
“I will listen to Father, Mother, Grandfather, Grandmother, Uncle, and Aunt,” she wrote above the blank space. “Mom, Dad, don’t blame Brother Jinrui. I didn’t cherish myself, I wasted myself, I was wrong, I will change.”
There was also a photo pressed behind the seventh letter. In the photo were three laughing faces: young Qiao Baiyu sitting on a rock, surrounded by young Li Fanghao and Qiao Lusheng, with the “Shunyun Children’s Park” gate in the background. Turning it over, teary-eyed Qiao Qingyu saw handwritten words: Taken October 31, 1990, precious daughter Little Baiyu’s fifth birthday.
Qiao Qingyu returned the letters and photo to the safe, closed its door, closed the cabinet, replaced the key, and dragged her heavy steps back to her room, falling onto the bed, letting tears fall—because this family had once truly existed, so bright and crystalline with deep emotion—
In December, various universities successively opened their independent recruitment applications. Second High had quite a few spots, and Sun Yinglong recommended two schools to Qiao Qingyu: Fudan and Renmin University.
Qiao Qingyu’s dream was Peking University, so she was hesitant about Sun Yinglong’s good intentions.
“This is just insurance,” Sun Yinglong explained to her. “If your entrance exam score alone can get you into Peking or Tsinghua, then the extra points you’d get, you don’t have to use them. It’s not like applying means there’s no turning back.”
So Qiao Qingyu agreed to apply to Renmin University.
After deciding, she wrote a letter to Wang Mumu, her pen flowing with visions of life in Beijing a year later, her heart full of yearning. Beijing, a bigger city with more people, rich and all-encompassing, could let her cast off all current constraints, escape the lengthy adolescence, and be completely reborn.
After dropping the letter in the mailbox, she turned to see the character “Huanzhou City Second High School” on the opposite school gate gleaming golden in the exceptionally bright sunset. Some tall basketball team members walked out and boarded the bus parked by the road, with Ming Sheng surrounded in their midst, as blurry as a grain of sand in a flood.
Qiao Qingyu stood quietly, waiting for the bus to pass her intersection. Two minutes later, the bus disappeared into traffic as she’d hoped, leaving her dejected, sorrowful, melancholic, like bidding eternal farewell to youth at a station—
The day after mailing the letter to Wang Mumu, Sun Yinglong excitedly came to the classroom during afternoon self-study and called Qiao Qingyu’s name.
“Come out for a moment.” He beckoned to Qiao Qingyu at the back door.
Qiao Qingyu came to the corridor, puzzled.
“Know why I called you out?” Sun Yinglong smiled brightly. “Can you guess? It’s good news.”
Qiao Qingyu shook her head. What good news could there be in her life?
“Your New Concept essay made the shortlist,” Sun Yinglong nodded with a smile. “Sprout magazine called the school office, said they had no phone or photo of you, were worried they couldn’t contact you… When did you write it? You’re making quite a splash, Qiao Qingyu.”
“Just, summer break,” the sudden joy made Qiao Qingyu a bit incoherent, “wrote it when school just started in September.”
“Where’s the article?”
“At home.”
“Bring it for this Chinese teacher to see,” Sun Yinglong smiled. “Let everyone read it too.”
Having no USB drive, Qiao Qingyu had to copy out the article again. The next day was Friday, and near the end of the last self-study period, Sun Yinglong walked in through the classroom’s back door with her article, using tape to post the two A4 papers on the bulletin board at the back of the room.
Seeing class was about to end, Sun Yinglong walked to the podium, clapped his hands for attention, and announced that Qiao Qingyu’s article had been shortlisted for New Concept, was posted on the back wall, and was worth everyone’s reading. As he spoke, many people turned surprised looks toward Qiao Qingyu, making her lower her eyes.
The bell rang, and Sun Yinglong left the classroom. The tense study atmosphere relaxed, with the endless screech of chairs being pulled back. Several students from the front rows walked through the narrow paths between desks toward the back of the classroom, including Guan Lan, who gave Qiao Qingyu a thumbs-up as she walked.
Suddenly Guan Lan stopped, her mouth opening in surprise, exchanging an incredulous look with Qin Fen, who had turned around in front.
“Everyone move aside.”
Ming Sheng’s voice.
Qiao Qingyu turned around to see three or four people already gathered around the bulletin board simultaneously stepping back several paces. Into the cleared space, Ming Sheng stepped in without ceremony, his thin yet broad shoulders blocking the entire article, leaving no room.
Her head buzzed, and she quickly packed her bag, fleeing in panic.